Fade Away
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: A little NCIS: LA drabble. "Who knows what'll slip away first, the name or the mind..." *Rated only to be safe.


**A/N: I'm not proud of this drabble. Started as an idea inspired by the song "Fade Away" by Cipes and the People (Greg Cipes looks like Deeks in a weird way…) and then I didn't get to write it a ton. Not overly happy with it, but I didn't want to waste all my work. So here you go. Another NCIS: LA drabble from Skylark Evanson.**

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own this. Why do you ask?**

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><p>"It's almost funny how easy it is to fade away," noted Callen, a yo-yo from an old box of Sam's he had found rolling from his palm, down towards the ground, and back up into his palm at the flick of his wrist. "To leave behind the problems of one life and to slip into another name, another identity."<p>

"I could have gone to Yale under a different name." Sam tapped his NCIS pen against his desk. "Still gonna be Sam Hanna at the end of the day."

Deeks, at his own desk on the opposite side of the office space to Callen, slid down in his chair a little bit more. "It gets easier every time. Just slide into someone else's skin. Tell another lie, and another lie."

"Until the truth is a memory in the wind," added Kensi, barely looking up from her work to see her three teammates sitting around her, not even considering working. "It helps even more when you drink."

Deeks laughed once while Sam smiled wide; Callen just kept his yo-yo rolling up and down the string that it was attached to. "Drinks are good," Deeks said with a big grin lacing his rugged features.

"The more lies, the easier it is to fade away into nothing." Sam's brown eyes flitted up to watch his partner's intent face. "Like G."

"It didn't fade." Callen's pristine sapphire gaze found his friend across from him. "You know I don't know what happened. If I knew what happened, I'd know what the G stands for." The yo-yo slid down the string. With a flick of his wrist, the small plastic toy rolled back up the string to the hand of the NCIS agent working it.

"Does it make undercover work easier?" asked Deeks. He tossed his head, trying to get the stringy strands of his blonde hair out of his blue eyes. "To be able to lie because you don't know what's the truth?"

There was a long pause and then a slight shrug from Callen. "Is it easier to pretend like you're someone else because you want to escape the name that burdens you?"

No one answered.

A crooked half-smile made it's way across Callen's face. "Exactly." He let the yo-yo slip from his hand, slide down the string, and with a flick of his wrist, he brought it back up to him. "You wouldn't know the answer unless you knew both alternatives. And none of us know both alternatives."

"Have you ever considered how easy it would be to take on that life for real instead of the one we have here?"

Kensi was the first to shoot a questioning look in her partner's direction. Her gaze found his scraggly hair that framed his face. "To leave this life behind and take on an alias for good?" After Deeks had nodded, Kensi smiled and shook her head. "No way," she said quickly, once more going back to her work while still carrying on the conversation with her teammates. "What we've got here is too good to give up."

"I don't know." G's words were musing; his chair creaked under the weight of him leaning back on it. He put one hand up behind his head while the other threw the yo-yo down again before letting it roll back up to him. "Not all of it would seem bad. Like Sam said, you could probably have gone to Yale in a fake life and just gone to community in the real one. And not like leaving behind all the crazy exes would be a bad thing."

Kensi and Sam mulled this over for a bit, both nodding in turn to agree with Callen's logic. Kensi had seen her fair share of exes, not all of them crazy, but there had been enough. Sam just knew that there were things that he knew weren't exactly great in his life.

"But have you ever considered," asked Deeks as he altered the direction the subject was going in, "actually losing yourself to another identity? Just forgetting the rest of who you are and succumbing to one name without even realizing it." Deeks ran a finger over the engraved scroll-like patterns in his desk. "You don't even know what's going on, but you're just gone in a heartbeat."

"The mind fades away into a lie." Kensi had to think this over. Letting a harsh reality of lies evaporate into one big lie, forgetting the truth, forgetting everything else. It would all just be one big pseudo life. She projected this life into her memory and began to wonder how much of a difference it would really make. "But you'd still remember the past life."

"Not if you try to forget," noted Deeks, pointing a finger to the woman. "If you try to forget, it all vaporizes into dust. Nothing left to miss, nothing left to remember."

Callen was the first to speak his mind. "I wouldn't want to do it. I don't know the truth as is. Why would I want to go on living in another lie?" He let the yo-yo stray from his fingers again and plummet to the floor before rolling back up into his palm again. "That, and I'd leave you guys behind." His pristine blue gaze flickered around to the faces of his teammates. "I don't think I could let go of this. You're the only family I have."

Sam added, "That you know of." He got a quick nod of acknowledgement from his partner, a sign that G knew that was a factor as much as anything else. Then the African-American man continued. "I'll agree with you on that, G. There's a lot of stuff I wouldn't wanna ditch here."

"You're like brothers to me," confessed Kensi, finally relinquishing the idea of getting any work done while having a serious conversation; working and talking with these three at the same time was almost physically impossible. "I wouldn't give you up for the world. Well, maybe for the world, but it depends on the scenario."

"As long as we don't all fade away," sighed Deeks as his eyes were shut and his fingers were folded behind his head. "All these names can only occupy one body. Who knows what'll slip away first, the name or the mind..."

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><p><strong>AN: Just a drabble. Feel free to hate, I'm not even satisfied. Reviews are welcomed, not necessary. This is definitely not my regular fandom…**

**~Sky**


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